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by Bethany Steichen
Today, over 140 million people worldwide use magnet therapy. Magnets are placed in bracelets, mattresses, back supports, knee braces, necklaces, and other devices to help heal everyday aches and pains. Professional athletes such as tennis player Lindsay Davenport, quarterback Dan Marino, baseball player Hideki Irabu, and golfer Jim Colbert, along with others, have used magnet therapy, and increased popularity of the products considerably.
Magnet therapy has today become a multi-billion dollar business, but its origins go back to pre-Revolutionary France. In that era, women frazzled by problems with the estates, the servants, politics, and goodness knows what else turned to Dr. Franz Mesmer, father of magnetic therapy, for relief. Anyone who was anyone paid Mesmer a visit, even Marie Antoinette.
Upon arrival at Mesmer's, a visitor was taken to a room with plush furnishings embroidered with astrological symbols and a magnetic bathtub. Iron filings and glass powder lined the inside of the tub. After soaking for a few minutes, Mesmer himself came in, clad in purple velvet robes and brandishing a white wand. He touched the patient's temples and a few pressure points with the wand. Patients raved about finding themselves cured of all their woes thanks to this fantastic treatment.
In 1784, however, a committee of distinguished doctors was appointed by King Louis XVI of France to investigate the validity of Mesmer's magnet treatments. They concluded that Mesmer's success was due to his convincing salesmanship and the placebo effect. In spite of this inauspicious beginning, the field of magnet therapy has grown, experiencing a resurgence of believers lately.
Despite the increasing popularity of magnetic therapies today, few studies validate the use of magnetic therapy. This leads to confusion in both the marketing and use of magnetic therapies. In fact, several manufacturers have been sued and forced to remove "false and fraudulent claims." Additionally, people have neglected a physician's care for broken bones, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other serious diseases believing that magnets will cure them.
Magnetic therapy is intended to heal small wounds and relieve pain by increasing the flow of blood to the injured area. An increase in blood flow to a region is thought to increase the local oxygen supply and also to help in tissue repair by delivering more proteins and leukocytes (white blood cells) to the wounded area.
Magnet therapy companies make two claims for a static magnet's ability to influence blood flow. First they purport that iron contained in hemoglobin is attracted to the magnetic field. However, the magnetism of blood depends not on iron, but on the presence of oxygen carried by the hemoglobin. Oxygenated blood is diamagnetic, meaning that it is slightly repelled by magnetic fields, not attracted as the companies would claim. Only a small proportion of blood is paramagnetic, and therefore attracted to magnetic fields, and even that responds only to magnetic fields above 3,500 gauss. For comparison, the magnetic field of the earth is less than 1 gauss and a typical refrigerator magnetic is about 100 gauss.
The second claim made by magnet companies is that negative and positive ions in the blood plasma and polar molecules on the red blood cells themselves are attracted to the magnet. Studies of these ions predict that a magnetic field of 140,000 gauss would be required to have an impact on blood flow. In contrast, the magnets in magnet therapy products often hold only ten sheets of paper to a refrigerator. This suggests that any benefits of magnet therapy are not due to the magnets themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the relief felt by users is entirely imagined. Magnetic wraps provide physical support and insulation, both of which can help heal aches and pulled muscles.
Nevertheless, the committee appointed by King Louis XVI was correct in asserting that good salesmanship over good medicine was the reason behind the popularity of Mesmer's treatment. The same is true for magnetic therapy today.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
www.magnapak.com/magnetic-therapy
www.magnetictherapy.co.uk/system/index.html
